“I should’ve known better than to let the two of ye go running off on yer own,” a blustering voice greeted loudly as Drizzt and Catti-brie entered the Cutlass in Luskan. Bruenor and Regis sat at the bar, across from Arumn Gardpeck, both looking a bit haggard still from their harrowing journey.

“I didn’t think you would come out,” Drizzt remarked, pulling a seat up beside his friends. “It is late in the season.”

“Later than you think,” Regis mumbled, and both Drizzt and Catti-brie turned to Bruenor for clarification.

“Bah, a little storm and nothing to fret about,” the dwarf bellowed.

“Little to a mountain giant,” Regis muttered quietly, and Bruenor gave a snort.

“Fix up me friend and me girl here with a bit o’ the wine,” Bruenor called to Arumn, who was already doing just that. As soon as the drinks were delivered and Arumn, with a nod to the pair, started away, the red-bearded dwarfs expression grew very serious.

“So where’s me boy?” he asked.

“With Deudermont, sailing on Sea Sprite, as far as we can tell,” Catti-brie answered.

“Not in port here,” Regis remarked.

“Nor in Waterdeep, though they might put in before winter,” Drizzt explained. “That would be Captain Deudermont’s normal procedure, to properly stock the ship for the coming cold season.”

Bruenor snorted again, but with a mouthful of ale, and wound up spitting half of it over Regis, “Then why’re ye here?” he demanded. “If me boy’s soon to be in Waterdeep, and not back for half a year, why ain’t ye there seeing to him?”

“We left word,” Drizzt explained.

“Word?” the dwarf echoed incredulously. “What word might that be? Hello? Well met? Keep warm through the winter? Ye durn fool elf, I was counting on ye to bring me boy back to us.”

“It is complicated,” Drizzt replied.

Only then did Catti-brie note that both Arumn Gardpeck and Josi Puddles were quietly edging closer, each craning an ear the way of the four friends. She didn’t scold them, though, for she well understood their stake in all of this.

“We found Delly,” she said, turning to regard the two of them in turn. “And the child, Colson.”

“How fares my Delly?” asked Arumn, and Catti-brie didn’t miss the fact that Josi Puddles was chewing his lip with anticipation. Likely that one was sweet on the girl, Catti-brie recognized.

“She does well, as does the little girl,” Drizzt put in. “Though even as we arrived, we found them in peril.”

All four of the listeners stared hard at those ominous words.

“Sheila Kree, the pirate, or so we believe,” Drizzt explained. “For some reason that I do not yet know, she took it upon herself to send a raiding party to Waterdeep.”

“Looking for me boy?” Bruenor asked.

“Or looking to back off Deudermont, who’s been chasing her all season,” remarked Arumn, who was well versed in such things, listening to much of the gossip from the many sailors who frequented his tavern.

“One or the other, and so we have returned to find out which,” Drizzt replied.

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